Posted on 12/9/2010, 12:50:13 PM by Homer_J_Simpson
B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War
Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance
Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/dec40/f09dec40.htm
British attacking Italians in the desert
Monday, December 9, 1940 www.onwar.com
In North Africa... The British begin an offensive in the western desert. General O’Connor leads 2 divisions, 7th Armored and 4th Indian, in the attack. They are supported by 7th Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) against whose Matilda tanks the Italians will have no answer. General Wavell is in Supreme Command in Egypt. The British force has few reserves and therefore the attack has comparatively limited objectives at first. General Graziani is the Italian Commander in Chief and he has deployed the 7 divisions of 10th Army (General Gariboldi) in forward positions in Egypt. O’Connor’s men began their advance from Mersa Matruh, 70 miles from the Italian front, three days previously and achieve complete surprise when they make their attack. The Italians have done little since mid-September but build a series of fortified camps in which they now sit. These camps do not give any real support to each other and will very easily be isolated. The British attack is in the form of a left hook around the Italian coastal positions and owes much to the careful training which the troops have received in desert warfare. The Matildas are used to break into first the Nibeiwa camp then the Tummar West camp which both fall the first day.
From Rome... There are command changes and redistribution of ships and squadrons in the Italian navy. Admiral Riccardi replaces Admiral Cavagnari as Undersecretary of State and Head of Supermarina. Admiral Iachino replaces Campioni as Fleet Commander in Chief.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/09.htm
December 9th, 1940
UNITED KINGDOM: Corvettes HMS Loosestrife and Oxlip laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY:
The Wehrmacht High Command announced:-
On the night of 8th-9th December, in retaliation for the British air assaults on western Germany cities, the German Luftwaffe mounted very heavy forces in a grand assault on London and operated in relays from nightfall until morning. Illumination was good and bombers dropped the heaviest calibre bombs on the city and especially on vital supply installations. Huge fires developed at many points which in the course of the night joined to form one huge blazing sea of flame.
Also, during the month of November, 7,455 tons of bombs were dropped on British targets by the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe estimate the British dropped 475 tons during the same month.
Kreigsmarine: Air reconnaissance by aircraft of Group 406 (reconnaissance aircraft type BV138) has had to be cancelled until further orders on account of technical faults in the aircraft concerned.
U-461 laid down.
U-83 launched. (Dave Shirlaw)
ITALY:
Rome: The Italian High Command announced:
Despite unfavourable weather conditions the Regia Aeronautica has bombed military targets at Santa Maura [the Greek island of Levkas] and the Arta Bay. In East Africa there were enemy air raids on Gallibat and Gherille (Somaliland), resulting in several deaths and injuries.
NORTH AFRICA:
LIBYA:
Soon after dawn the 7th Armoured and 4th Indian Divisions launch a surprise attack on the Italians in Egypt. 7th Armoured cuts the coast road to the west and isolates Sidi Barrani. No. 3 RAAF’s Gloster Gauntlets dive-bombed, 33 Sqn. (Gladiators) strafed and 274 Sqn (Hurricanes) shot down four CR42s. 1,000 prisoners are taken in the first thrust of Operation Compass.
Nibeiwa: At 7 a.m. British tanks storm their way into the Italian fort. The tanks and men had spent two days advancing slowly under cover of darkness with Hurricane lamps - shaded from the Italians - to guide them over the rough desert tracks. Windscreens were removed from vehicle to avoid the sun reflecting on them. By day, 30,000 men and machines lay entirely still under the burning sun.
The Italian defensive positions face the east. The defenders were preparing breakfast of coffee and rolls when the British barrage began. The attack came from the west. Two more forts surrendered later. At 1.30 pm the attack on the Tummar camps opened and by nightfall practically the whole area was in Allied hands.
Italian GENERAL PIETRO MALETTI, commander of the motorized (brigade-sized) “Maletti Group,” is cut down by a British tank’s machinegun while himself manning a machinegun during the surprise attack on his unit’s encampment at Nibeiwa, in one of the first actions of “Operation Compass,” the extraordinarily successful British offensive which nearly destroyed the Italian forces in North Africa (and which is sometimes referred to as the “Wavell Offensive”). (Michael F. Yaklich)
EGYPT:
Cairo: The British Middle East Air Force announced:
Reconnaissance flights have revealed that extensive damage was done during the (British) bombing of Castel Benito near Tripoli, Libya on December 7. In the hours leading to Monday morning, British planes raided the Benina airfield [East Africa].
ALBANIA:
The Greeks capture Pogradec, over 40 miles inside Albanian territory.
CANADA: Minesweepers HMCS Trois Riviere (ex-HMCS Three Rivers) and Brockville laid down Sorel, Province of Quebec. (Dave Shirlaw)
ATLANTIC OCEAN: U-103 sank SS Empire Jaguar in Convoy OB-252. (Dave Shirlaw)
My mother ,whose ancestry was Greek, used to tell me during the Second World War, the Greeks pushed the Italians back with sticks. I always had this vision of technologically superior Italians being attacked by a band of peasant Greek farmers pelting them with rocks and knocking them on their backs with sticks. Good stories. My mother would also say that the Italians did not really want to fight. They just wanted to drink wine and play the mandolin. I suppose it might be true. :)
There is a nice map with today’s entry at blogspot.com. It looks familiar. I think I know where it came from.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 466 December 9, 1940
Operation Compass. British artillery and bombers bombard Italian fort Nibeiwa from 5 to 7 AM. At 7.15 AM, Western Desert Force moves forward and turns North to attack the Italian forts from the rear. They are quickly spotted by Colonel Vittorio Revetra, commander of Italian fighter forces in Libya flying a Fiat CR-42 between airfields, but it is too late. Indian 4th Infantry Division and British 7th Royal Tank Regiment take the camp at Nibeiwa at 8.30 AM, Tummar West at 4 PM and Tummar East by nightfall. 4th Armoured Brigade (part of 7th Armoured Division) drives to the coast, preventing an Italian withdrawal by cutting the only road. British monitor HMS Terror and gunboats HMS Ladybird & HMS Aphis shell forts at Sidi Barrani and Maktila from the Mediterranean to clear out the coastal defenses and further frustrate any retreat. British take 4,000 prisoners.
At 1.32 AM, U-103 sinks SS Empire Jaguar 250 miles west of Ireland (all 37 hands lost)
"We are not doing our duty in letting these great numbers be taken from our civil life and kept at the public expense to make such inconceivably small results in the fighting line."
Typical government inefficiencies, even when, or maybe especially when, faced with life or death consequences.
Nothing surprising there.
Indeed, not so certain our forces today are much different.
What's most curious is that, from his own words more than a year into the war, Churchill does not seem to be fully knowledgeable -- or to have first approved all the numbers, the various reasons, and the expected progress towards what we today might call a more "lean, mean fighting machine."
Seems to me this would be a matter of at least passing daily interest to a wartime Prime Minister, plus a subject for more routine staff studies and meetings.
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